Apple: No evidence that switch campaign has worked
WinInfo | at | by Mike
Six months into the company's "Switch" campaign, the company is admitting that there is no evidence that the campaign has stimulated Macintosh sales at all. The only substantive proof, of course, will come during Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote address next week, but the Apple marketing machine has been curious silent about the effects of the Switch campaign for a long time now. The only real statistic the company has offered came from Apple CFO Fred Anderson, who noted in October that 40 percent of the customers who bought "something" from the company's retail stores were not previous Mac owners. However, in the same time period, Mac sales have stagnated or fallen, depending on the market, and its market share has fallen. During the crucial Thanksgiving long weekend, typically a high water mark for retail sales, Apple only discussed foot traffic in its store, and not actual sales like other companies, which might be telling. In any event, MacWorld will be even more fateful than usual for the company, especially if its efforts in 2002 turn out to have been in vain.